The size and weight of the ring suggest that it was most likely worn by a man. It weighs over 32 grams and we know from X-ray fluorescence analysis at the British Museum that the metal is over 95% gold, the rest being silver and copper.

That’s fairly common for gold of this date, to be a good standard. Vikings were very concerned with the purity of the metal. On silver coins you sometimes find little nicks made with a knife blade where they were testing that they’d got decent quality silver.

It’s got a little bit of damage – probably hit by a plough or something in the thousand years that it’s been buried – but it’s our policy to preserve the ring as found and not try to restore it to ‘as new’ condition.

The ring was made by twisting two strands of gold wire and then twisting these with two tapering gold rods to form a hoop. The thin ends of the rods and wires were joined at the back of the hoop by beating them together into a flat, diamond-shaped plate. The plate is decorated with tiny punched circles…Read More (Culture24.org.uk)

WASHINGTON – The United States Mint (Mint) today announced record sales of American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins for the third consecutive year.

Once again, global demand for the American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins drove sales to a record high, this year reaching 47,000,000, surpassing the 44,006,000 ounces sold in 2014 and the 42,675,000 ounces sold in 2013. The Mint broke last year’s record Nov. 30 when sales reached 44,666,500.

To add further perspective to the demand for Silver Bullion Coins, for the first 22 years of the American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Program, the Mint typically sold between three million and 10 million ounces per year. Since 2007, sales have increased nearly five-fold from 9,887,000 in 2007 to more than 44 million last year…Read More (US MINT)

China’s historic devaluation of the yuan this summer fuelled a gold bar and coin “buying spree” in the country as investors sought to shelter themselves from further market volatility, according to the World Gold Council.

Lower gold prices pushed up overall gold demand by 8pc in the third quarter to 1,120.9 tonnes compared with a year earlier, following an early sell-off by Western investors anticipating a US interest rate rise.

This represents the strongest demand since the second quarter of 2013.Read More (UK Telegraph)

China has made its first subsea gold discovery with the location of a multi-billion-dollar gold deposit in the water of the Bohai Sea. The deposit is estimated to contain over 470 tons of gold in 2,000 meters of water.

Recovering the gold will be challenging for the nation and could require more than 1,000 people working simultaneously, reports China Daily.

Coins will be available in denominations of 5 and 10 grams while bar or bullion of 20 grams through MMTC outlets. The PM also launched the Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS) and Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme.Read More (IndiaTimes.com)

The valuable collection dates back to the reign of Ethelred the Unready in the 990s, The declaration means that the finder, Paul Coleman, will get a large share of the expected £1.3million value.

The Lenborough Hoard is a hoard of more than 5,000 late Anglo-Saxon silver coins, dating to the eleventh century, that was found at Lenborough in Buckinghamshire, England in 2014. It is believed to be one of the largest hoards of Anglo-Saxon coins ever found in Britain. Read about The Lenborough Hoard at Wikipedia here.